Jeremiah, Mary Evans were early settlers
Jeremiah and Mary "Polly" Larimer Evans of Washington County, Va., were among the first group of settlers, mostly kin, to come to what is now Bear Grove Township in Fayette County before 1820. This was then Bond County.
With their party were their eight children, son-in-law John Denton and his brothers, and perhaps Samuel Houston, who later married Jane Evans.
Among their children were John, married to Nancy Bunyard; Jane (Mrs. Samuel Houston); Ruth (Mrs. John Denton); Simeon; Aiken; Margaretta, who married Michael Smith; Mary, wife of Thomas Denton, and Harriett Evans, who married William Smith, brother to Michael.
Two of their children, John and Ruth, were already married when the family began their trek to Illinois.
Ruth’s husband, John Denton, was born in Washington County, Ebingdon County seat, and in a letter written by their grandson, the Rev. C.L. Denton, he told that the couple was married on Dec. 2, 1817, just before starting west.
They came through with their covered wagons and their teams of oxen to Vandalia. There was a lot of open land around Vandalia, and while Jeremiah Evans settled four miles southwest of Vandalia on the Carlyle Road, John and Ruth Denton, made their home five miles north of Vandalia within “a stone’s throw” of Vera.
John homesteaded 127 acres of land, went out into the timber, cut the trees, sawed the logs, hewed them out and built a two-story double hewed log house, which stood for 150 years. Eight sons and one daughter were born in the house.
Jeremiah Evans was quite prosperous, owned much land and was prominent in his community. He is mentioned frequently in the old records. The county history, published in 1878, mentions that Jeremiah was the first blacksmith in what became Bear Grove Township. He had put up a shop for his own use, but did work for the other early settlers at no charge.
Tragedy came soon after their arrival, when Mary died on Feb. 17, 1824. She was buried on their farm, and the Evans Cemetery grew up around her grave. Two years after her death, John’s wife, Nancy Bunyard Evans, died. Her stone lies beside that of her mother-in-law, Mary, in the cemetery.
Within 10 years, other families from Washington County, Va., joined the Evanses in Bear Grove and Seminary townships. This included members of the Allen family, William and his sisters, Catherine (who became the third wife of John Evans) and Eleanor (the wife of Samuel Eakin).
Eleanor did not live to see the Illinois lands. She died while en route – at Harper's Ferry, Va. – in 1832. Samuel began his trek to Illinois on "Old Christmas," Jan. 6, 1832, in the dead of winter. Following Eleanor’s death, he did not return to Virginia with his six children, but rather, continued the journey to Illinois. He first settled in Bond County, with some of his land lying in Seminary Township in Fayette County.
Aiken Evans’ son, James, told of some of the hardships faced during the early days. He wrote that between their farm and Vandalia “there were only two small farms cleared from their home to town. The rest of the road was thick, heavy timber.
“When we came to town after a storm or sleet, the limbs hung so low to each side of the road that we had to knock off sleet so we could get through.”
James said he plowed with a little yoke of oxen named Buck and Bally, hitched to a 10-inch plow. This was a two-man job, and James held the plow while his brother drove the oxen. It is very possible that the oxen were descendents of the original team that pulled the family’s covered wagon over the mountains on their way to Illinois in the early day.